by French Press Agency - AFP

Colombia's top negotiator questioned Sunday the ELN's intentions to launch peace talks after an attack on a southern oil pipeline, criticism that came one day after the country's government and FARC rebels announced a revised peace accord.

The modified deal between the government and the FARC comes after voters in a referendum rejected a prior peace accord to end 52 years of armed conflict.

The Colombian military said over the weekend that members of the ELN had activated an improvised explosive device causing a pipeline blast 100 meters from a kindergarten that left behind an oil slick in a nearby riverbed.

"This is the kind of anti-humanitarian gesture, besides being reprehensible, that calls into question those who say they want to start a peace process," the government's lead negotiator, Juan Camilo Restrepo, said Sunday on Twitter.

The government and the ELN, the second largest guerrilla group in the country, had planned to launch public peace talks on Oct. 27 in Quito. President Juan Manuel Santos canceled the negotiations after the rebels failed to release hostage ex-congressman Otis Sanchez.

The government and the FARC meanwhile announced over the weekend a new peace deal to end more than half-a-century of violent civil strife.

"We have reached a new final agreement to end the armed conflict, which incorporates changes, clarifications and some new contributions from various social groups, which we have gone through one by one," said a joint statement read out by diplomats from Cuba and Norway, the peace process guarantors.

Santos stressed that the new peace deal between the FARC and the government "is a better agreement."

At the moment, neither side has made any mention of the new peace deal being put before a new referendum vote.

The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and Santos' government had been meeting since Oct. 22 to try to rescue a peace deal that has taken four years to negotiate. In an Oct. 2 referendum, voters unexpectedly rejected the peace agreement, deeming it too soft on the country's largest rebel group. The development was a blow to Santos, who won the Nobel Peace Prize last month for his efforts to bring "total peace" to Colombia.

The FARC and the ELN are the last two leftist guerrilla groups involved in a messy, multi-sided conflict that has killed more than 260,000 people, left 7 million displaced and 45,000 more people missing.

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